Author Archives: feeling entropy

Extreme sports have really come to the public’s attention in the past few years. Surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, rock climbing, and anything that goes into the X-Games. Us technology literate [geeks] people don’t let stuff like this just pass by without putting our own spin on things. Geeks can be extreme too!

I’m not talking about sitting on your computer for 12 solid hours playing Counter Strike while your girlfriend feeds you to avoid a pause in playing. Real extreme requires danger, adrenaline, excitement, and Nintendo DS. That’s right, a group of four played Nintendo DS while skydiving to prove… something. I for one think that these guys are awesome and would have done the same thing had I been given the resources: airplane, airplane pilot, three other friends, four Nintendo DS’s, and at least one parachute.

Samsung and Microsoft have developed a HHD, hybrid* hard drive. Why didn’t I think of this? Flash memory is fast as lightning (not technically), and rotating disk hard drives forte on the capacity side of storage. When these two combine forces you’re set with a fast hard drive that has a large capacity. The best of both worlds, if you ask me.

This hybrid technology will be used for Microsoft’s new OS Longhorn.

*Note: do not mistake this with a hybrid vehicle, this hard drive does not run on gasoline and electricity.

There’s more talk about integrating mobile phones with just about anything that uses electricity than anything else these days. Dell didn’t want to be outside looking in, so they have resurfaced rumors of their mobile phone. Details aren’t out on the actual handset, but I’d imagine the target market to be stuff shirt suit and tie types. However geeks like me will most likely be the first ones to grease the screen with our dirty little hands.

Previously on LIVE Digitally we covered the ‘Sirius Radio Sportster’ and the ‘Car Docking Station With Car Antenna’ (CDSWCA) car integration. The install for our Sirius Radio went smooth as silk. The external antenna, holster, and wires all settled with no aggravating mishaps.

The first portion of the post-install review will take all data points with the mindset that the Sirius radio is connected to the car stereo via the Aux input. This seamless connection assures that the highest possible quality audio signal is being transferred to the car stereo amplifier.

What better means to test out a car stereo than to drive around the city?! That’s exactly what I did. I drove. I listened.

While driving, I noticed a very crisp and clean signal from the Sirius stereo. Every different channel I surfed blasted through my stock Honda deck and Pioneer aftermarket speakers with confidence. I usually jam along in the car with a CD or my 3G iPod (which explains why I have the aux input for the stock stereo). The Sirius sound was just as crisp and clear as a CD or the iPod.

I enjoyed Jazz, Classical, News, Hip-Hop, and Dance music with a very easy navigation interface. I was not given an instruction manual with the Sirius Sportster hand piece, but understanding the controls was no problem at all. Each station is given a 3 digit number, use the knob to scan each station in numerical order. For example the Electronica/Dance stations are given the prefix 06, thus 061, 062, 064, etc are all Electronica/Dance themed stations. Using the ‘category’ button I was able to jump genres with ease. Tap it once and the display shows your current standing without changing the station, tap again and you move entire genres.

I even set a reminder for 50 Cent’s song ‘Candy Shop’. As the song was playing, I quickly hit the menu button and maneuvered myself into the notify feature. Setting this made the Sportster notify me with a few beeps that station XXX was playing ‘Candy Shop’. With 1 button press I could jump to the song and rock out to my new favorite song!

More to come on the Sirius auto experience so don’t touch that dial (mouse button).

Combine a GPS unit with a mini computer linked up in your car and you’re a data point! The computer tells a server where you are and how fast you are going, thus painting a traffic flow map. With many different people acting as data points, the up to date information will allow the fastest route to be calculated on the fly. With this technology we can stand to wait a bit longer until Scotty is able to beam us up.

The pope has joined the digital revolution along with the rest of us. Although it’s not really a revolution it’s more of an evolution, our new pope has email! Let me tell you does he have emai. How would you feel if you opened an email account and within 48 hours there were 56,000 emails in your inbox?

I don’t think I’ve had 56,000 emails sent to me in my entire existence. I wonder how many he personally responds to? Can we say auto-reply!

The “Thirty Inches of Glory”, as I refer to it, requires a dual link version of nVidia’s GeForge 6800 vid card since DVI can only handle the dinky resolution of 1,920 x 1,200. If that’s not getting your salivary glands pumping then imagine a desktop resolution of 2,560 x 1.600. My 12” iBook screen handles a 1,024 x 768 resolution… making the “Thirty Inches of Glory” about 2.5 times larger than my display.

The fantasy of being able to see each and every application simultaneously gives me goose bumps. And for all you die hard PC people, this baby was tested on a PC for lack of a G5 Apple machine. You heard right, the “Thirty Inches of Glory” swings both ways.

In most movies I’ve watched, the undercover ‘good guy’ gets unveiled by ripping his shirt open to reveal the wire. He’s been bugged! Those ‘good guys’ are usually smooth enough to slip out of any sticky situation the silver screen throws their way.

Us normal spies aren’t always so lucky. We need fool proof plans that will work 100% of the time without a chance of getting caught. When the evil druglord rips my shirt open, I want him to see scrawny muscles and a couple of unwanted pounds around the love handles. This special agent is going wireless bug style.

It’s all possible with the Meganet VME Spy phone XP* (no relation to Windows XP). The phone looks, acts, feels, and functions just as your normal Siemens or Nokia mobile phone. The added feature is when HQ calls me and enters in a special code. The phone doesn’t ring, vibrate, or light up when the secret digits are entered in after the phone number. The phone simply turns into a listening device for the backup to hear.

“So let me get this straight, you set up the hit on both of the bosses. Then made it look like they killed each other?”

“That’s right kid, but you didn’t hear it from me!”

“Oh yes I did, and so did the FBI thanks to my Meganet VME Spy Phone XP! You’re going down!!”

*I hope that the phone doesn’t have the actual name written on the external case, that’d be a pretty easy give-away.

It’s estimated that Craig Newmark’s creation (www.craigslist.org) is taking millions from classified sections near you. Many journalists haven’t even heard of Newmark’s list which is a very common knowledge classified area in the SF bay, the home of Craig’s list.

Craig found a niche, and I commend him for such. I also wish I had come up with the list idea myself. Craigslist is blazing fast due to the absence of advertisements. The revenue that keeps craigslist up and running flows from the jobs section. Pay to post an opening for a job, every other aspect of craigslist is free.

Yearly, Craig takes an estimated $50-60 Million dollars from would be news paper classified ads. Al, a business section columnist for the SF Chronicle says that since Craig has deprived the newspapers of this revenue, he needs to find a way to fill the void he created. I don’t think Craig owes anyone, nobody with a great money making idea find a way to replace the revenue that they divert. Yet the fact that Mr. Newmark’s reply was “I’m trying to figure out how to help” makes him that much cooler of a fellow in my book.

Literally, they’re off. Children in the Middle Eastern Country of Quatar have been exploited as camel jockeys in camel races for far too long. Children have had stories of being sold or abducted and forced into the grueling life of a camel jockey. Some of the children are as young as 4 years of age.

An unmasked hero (un-named Swiss company) has swooped in and saved the day for everyone. Robots will take the place of the children jockeys.

A recent Quatar law bans the participation of any child under the age of 16 years and under the weight of 45 kilograms [99.2 lbs] in response to United Nation’s request.

I wonder if they will let the children remote control the robots? Regardless this story provides dual happiness for me:
Children aren’t abducted and starved for entertainment and gambling purposes. The sight of a robot riding a camel… you understand.

Tuesday Congress passed a law citing up to 3 y ears of prison and up to $250,000.00 in fines for those movie pirates who make prerelease movies available for download.

Is it April first still? 3 years in prison?
After 10 seconds with our internet search crutch, Google, (searching: “three years in prison”), I found many cases a bit more worthy of three years in the big house. A football coach who molested his 10 year old player, a custodian who attached a teacher, and a hacker who accessed top secret documents from Swedish Telcom Co. Ericson.

The punishment must suit the crime. I fear that soon I’ll be reading about P2P sharers getting there left click finger chopped off for stripping the DMR off their audio files.